site banner
PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9988 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

https://archive.ph/IHPLW

Tim Walz isn't seeking reelection.

It's been interesting watching the reaction in my various social circles as this plays out. It seems like it's rapidly coalescing into two distinct narratives depending on tribal alliance:

  1. Walz is hoping to get out of the spotlight before he's indicted in connection to the fraud scandal
  2. Walz fears for his life because insane ultra-MAGA instigators are trying to ruin him.

I don't know if either are actually true, but it's an interesting thing to watch develop in real time.

New Nick Shirley video just dropped and it's a banger: https://youtube.com/watch?v=LmIrwjKQQKc

This one is a long-form, extended interview with David, the older man from the previous video. Apparently he's been investigating this stuff for years, rather obsessively, to the point where he's lost friends and family because they just think he's some sort of crazy racist person for investigating.

It's a bit long and meandering, so it's hard to keep track of all the claims made in it. I think we'll need time to process this and investigate further. I'd like to see this written in text with sources, instead of just a long interview. But among the claims made:

  • That this is all organized by Somali gangs, with the gang leaders bringing retribution on any family that doesn't go along with it. Investigators like David also get threatened with violence.
  • Widespread voter fraud from families living in collective housing. One person collects the ballots, "vouches" for all the people living there with no proof, and then returns a massive ballot stack all voting the same way.
  • "This is the worst fraud in human history." He estimates that a total of $80-100 billion was stolen by fraud in Minnesota
  • "However bad you imagine it is, it's worse. He alledges that basically every social program in Minnesota is now heavily corrupted by fraud. Some of the biggest are schools that might have 10 students, but pretending to get 100 or more so that they can get massive amounts of state funding. Medical services do the same.
  • This is all protected by the government and judicial system of Minnesota. At one point, David did the work to prove that a Somali leader did $7.2 million of fraud. He was convicted unanimously by a jury, but the judge overturned the verdict and left him free to continue collecting more money. The judges are elected, probably with the help of fraudalent Somali votes.
  • This isn't just state money, it's also federal money. This increases the scale, but also increases the severity of the crimes.
  • That Somalians routinely travel back to Somali, taking large amounts of cash with them (well over the TSA limit of $10,000), and for some reason the TSA grants them an exception to this when any normal American would be arrested or stopped for questioning.

So... will this lead to anything further? Tim Walz already said he won't run for reelection, but at this point I no longer think that's enough. The feds need to come purge the entire state government of Minnesota on charges of racketeering and voter fraud.

I did a lot of digging in Washington State daycares the other week. Washington has better public-facing financial tools. There is a big database of all government payouts for the last 6 months. You can go down the list of DYCF payments, stop at every company with “Home Daycare” or “Family Child Care” in their name that gets a 5-figure payout each month, cross-reference the name with the Washington State Daycare registry, and see that every single one has a Somali name as the primary contact. I must have found at least a dozen places run out of a medium-sized suburban home licensed for 12 kids that were each raking in $40,000 a month. Even assuming these were legitimate businesses running at full capacity, that would be over $3000 per child per month, for daycare, run out of someone’s basement.

Hope you continue and expand posting on this work. We need more investigators and fewer Takes.

You can see the base payment rates for Licensed Centers from Washington's Working Connections Child Care here. Depending on exactly where you are (region map) that 40k is very possible. If you took care of 12 infants (<1 year old) for a full day, for 30 days, in King County, the state would pay you ~$41k for that month. The rates are fairly similar for licensed family homes. You can also get an increase above those base rates if your childcare entity is part of the Early Achievers program. Family Home and Center EA rates.

Here I am paying for daycare like a chump while illegals live on the dole and also get daycare for free for unlimited kids. Meanwhile actual hardworking parents have to pay their own way fully. This kind of thing is dysgenic as af.

It’s almost scarier if it turns out these are all technically legit businesses and the government was just this bad at not getting Dutch Booked.

Sure, you could take care of your own baby like a chump, or you could let your buddy take care of your baby and do him a $3000/month solid.

I don't know how it works in America, but you can mind children out of your own home in Ireland so long as you stick to the regulations (these have been tightened up recently, before that you could mind mind kids in your own home, say for a neighbour, and they could pay you what you both agreed on, which generally would not be declared as taxable income, hence the regulating):

A childminder is a person who runs a childminding service looking after other people’s children (under the age of 15 years) for at least 2 hours per day, in the childminder’s own home. This definition does not apply to people who care for children in the children’s own home (such as nannies and au pairs). Childminders work by themselves and do not employ any other people to assist them with the children they are caring for.

This now requires that childminders working out of their own home register with a local committee, undergo training, will have inspections carried out, and will need to keep records and make sure tax affairs are in order. There are small grants available, but you can't apply for government funding as such (that goes to professional and community childminding services and day cares).

Now, of course you could still pay a relative or neighbour to look after your kid with their own and nobody needs to register or undergo formal training, but if anyone is minding more than three kids not of their own family in their home for money, they have to comply with the new regulations.

What's being described in the links sounds like they were formally set up as businesses (even if de facto it's someone's home and they let the kids run around unsupervised), and of course there are always opportunities for scams and fraud, or even just "we charge parents full-whack fees, most of that goes into our pockets and what gets spent on the kids is buttons". I've heard that informally at second-hand where I work, allegedly passed on by one of the inspectors; one of the perks (for parents) of us being a community service which is not-for-profit and government-funded is that we do get inspected out the wazoo by several bodies and have to have paperwork backing up every last thing, so they keep track of what got spent where by whom on what. No real opportunity to shove 80% of funding into our own pockets, unlike private operators where (by what I was told the inspector says) you can see it when you go into the services even though they're charging parents market rates. Or to have fake kids enrolled and claim the funding, but no such kid exists (in fact, we could fill the spaces available twice over, such is demand, so no need for ghost enrolments unless you're scamming).

Several years back there was some right-wing woman that ran a blog and realized this particular (smaller-scale) fraud. Sign up with the other SAHM down the street, "officially" you take care of the other person's baby but the state never checked, and get a nice payout for doing what you were going to do for free.

Wish I could remember her name and track that down. Alas.

It’s almost scarier if it turns out these are all technically legit businesses and the government was just this bad at not getting Dutch Booked.

Some of them are technically legit, and the people who work in child sex crimes units will agree that it is scarier. Although, not so much because the government is getting bilked.

Some of them are technically legit, and the people who work in child sex crimes units will agree that it is scarier.

Yeah. Here's a lovely story that demonstrates that at least the Somalians are (allegedly) only screwing the state government, not the kids:

A tip from gardaí has led to the chief executive of a childcare company in California being arrested and charged with 16 counts of sexually exploiting six children in his care.

Miguel Adrian Gonzalez, a 28-year-old from west Los Angeles who is the chief executive of a childcare programme and a private babysitter, was charged with a series of child abuse offences on November 25.

Gonzalez was charged with two counts of obtaining custody of a minor with the intent to produce child sex abuse imagery, seven counts of production of child abuse material, two counts of distribution of child abuse material, three counts of receipt of child abuse material and two counts of possession of child abuse material.

According to a court filing from a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agent based in LA, she received information from the HSI office in Kentucky in September that implicated Gonzalez in enticing an 11-year-old male victim, called MV-1 in the court filings, to produce child sexual abuse material on Snapchat.

The HSI Kentucky office received information leading to the identification of the victim from HSI’s cyber crimes centre, which had itself been notified of the existence of the material by the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau.

...While privately messaging PHOENIXV on Snapchat, the boy was instructed to send nude photos and videos or PHOENIXV “would come to MV-1’s home and harm him”.

The boy was sent his address by PHOENIXV as part of this threat. The PHOENIXV user then proceeded to instruct the boy to produce child sex abuse material while calling him “daddy”. The LA agent says investigators were able to establish that Gonzalez controlled the accounts using the PHOENIXV username.

A US attorney’s office statement issued in November said that its complaint against Gonzalez alleges that from 2021 to 2025 the childcare provider and CEO of Let’s Play LA LLC “produced sexually explicit images of children in his care or supervision”. It said Gonzalez also sexually abused at least one minor victim.

“In October 2023 and May 2024, Gonzalez texted the parents of two minor victims, each of them 6-year-old boys at the time, and offered to obtain custody or control of the two victims through his babysitting services, knowing that each victim would be portrayed in a visual depiction engaging in sexually explicit conduct. These requests led to two instances in which Gonzalez produced child sexual abuse material (CSAM).”

It is not uncommon at all. Other than the standard fare of boyfriends and stepdads, a very common scenario is that the son/brother/spouse of a woman running one of these "home child care" places just abuses several of the kids.

Well, you could let your friend take care of your baby while you take care of your hers and each make $3000... like a chump. Or 12 people could register 12 daycares and each "take care of" all 12 babies for $33000 each.

Babies, much like tech platforms, have close to 0 marginal cost and scale nearly infinitely

Now that's American innovation

I guess one limitation is it does have to be your "buddy" (at least, non-relative). The page describing the program has an exception so that you cannot receive subsidized childcare payments for your children during hours when you yourself are providing childcare to a child you are related to that is paid for with subsidies but it is worded kind of confusingly:

Note: In-home providers who are relatives and are paid child care subsidies to care for children receiving WCCC benefits, may not receive those benefits for their children during the hours in which they provide subsidized child care.

On the same page they are specific that a child's "parent" cannot be a subsidized provider but it seems like other family members could be:

Someone other than the child's biological parent, step-parent, adoptive parent, legal guardian, in-loco parentis, or spouse of any of these individuals

Luckily the law doesn't recognize muslim polygamous marriages as "wives" !

I've seen speculation that the polygamous habits of Somalians are why this particular grift is so lucrative for them. One man with four wives worth of children could be raking in a middle-class lifestyle just watching the kids.

I don't know about the in-actuality familial habits of American Somalis to evaluate whether this is a good explaination or just made-up.

Realistically, i don't think that's the direct means of the fraud. It's just another way they form an insular, clannish community that trusts itself to do organized crime against the rest of us. Most of the daycares seem to be making up fake kids, and maybe occasionally bussing in some kids if they need evidence.

I'm confused. I have a friend that put his kid in one of these suburban daycares (it's legit) and as far as I'm aware it's costing him thousands per month. I looked it up and they are also getting thousands per kid from the government. I know childcare is expensive, but it's not double dip into government's pocket and regular person's pocket for something like $5k total per kid expensive, so what's going on?

Again, no idea how the USA works, but there are various subsidised childcare schemes under the Irish government. Depending on your circumstances (e.g. are you lone parent, low income, etc.) and the age of the child, some parents will pay full fees and some parents will get a subsidised place (i.e. government funding for the kid while parent pays some percentage of the fee). Pre-school children are eligible for free care for 3 hours per day x 5 days per week x 38 weeks in the year. If the child stays longer, then the parents have to pay for the extra hours.

It's confusing to work out, so I'm glad I don't handle it. Parents have to register their child online and all the associated paperwork then gets processed, and the childcare service then submits how many hours a day and days a week each particular child attends. There are also ratios of how many staff to children per room, depending on age of children and how many in the room.

At the same time, the government is also recently increasing pay rates for childcare workers. So there's the juggling act of "how much do I pay the qualified staff plus running costs, versus what I can charge parents and get under funding" for operators. For the less scrupulous, that makes it a temptation to understaff the premises or hire less qualified/unqualified staff or cut corners while, let us say, maximising revenue streams. We don't have anything like the Minnesota scandal here (as yet), but that doesn't mean that some mini-scandal can't happen in future.

At 20/days/month and 8/hrs/day, that comes out to about... $31.25/hr per kid.

I'm realizing that I genuinely have no idea what a price is for childcare.

Is that high or low?

Remember, out of that you are paying:

(1) Staff wages (including pension contributions, taxes, etc.)
(2) Running costs of the premises (heat/light/phone/insurance/maintenance, etc.) Rent as well if you don't own your own premises.
(3) Are you feeding the kids? Then the cost of buying in meals pre-cooked (if you don't prepare them on-site) or buying food to be cooked
(4) Equipment and materials for the rooms (everything from toys, mats, furniture, books, art supplies, etc.)
(5) Cleaning and hygiene supplies, anything else you can think of
(6) Unexpected expenses (oh crap, cold snap, we're running the heating all day long at full blast; yikes, the sinks in the bathrooms fell off the wall; hey, what's this leak in the roof?)
(7) Little treats: Easter eggs, Christmas presents, trips to the cinema etc.

Then after all that, if you're a private operator, make some profit.

Staffing requirements usually put 4 infants to 1 caretaker. At a legit facility rent admin and janitorial staff wipe out even a fully subsidized package, without accounting for incidentals and capex. Probably need to hit at least 12 infants to start breaking even, and then your capex soars too. Daycares are not automatic money printers because kids are delicate and staffing is difficult.

So the easy scam is to just put pretend kids in and unqualified staff in place with fake credentials if ever interrogated. No auditor will investigate on their own and the local vote boss just says ' I will take care of it'

When the govt was not a fat cow worth milking taking care of it meant having to offer a sacrificial scalp to the other local bosses. Now the govt is this depersonalized money printer far away, and its also run by whites who are not only the enemy but also one that are self declaring the nobility of self impoverishment. Why would you deny them the opportunity to feel good.

But aren’t these payments made to an in home daycare? That is, there is no rental cost. Sure there is some capex but that’s relatively minimal. And with 12 kids, the admin shouldn’t be too bad.

Let’s say you hire three people and you handle all of the admin. You pay each helper 6k a month (72k a year). Let’s say you spend 5k on capex / insurance a month. That’s still 10k left over.

And I think those expenses are being generous.

People complain about the cost of childcare but if it's properly licensed, employs qualified staff, and is a decent place for the kids, it's expensive to run.

If it's cheap, either it's Neighbour Sally looking after her two kids and your two for money under the table in her own home, or it's not someplace you want your kids to be for hours per day.

If it's 12 kids for in-home daycare, then they are supposed to be registered and all associated admin etc. should be performed. Doing it on the cheap means shoddiness all round. Don't state old age homes in the USA have terrible reputations, precisely because it is done on the cheap?

Looking it up online, for the USA it depends on which state the premises is located in, but:

In-Home Child Care Some states and territories may not require certain in-home child care programs to have a license if they meet the following criteria:

  • Are related to the children they care for
  • Care for only a few children, as defined by the state or territory
  • Provide care occasionally for only a few hours a day

In these instances, states may consider the in-home provider to be legally exempt from needing a child care license. As such, with the exception of in-home child care providers participating in the state or territory’s child care subsidy program, license-exempt in-home child care providers do not need to meet the following health and safety requirements to provide care:

  • Basic health and safety requirements, including comprehensive background checks and monitoring
  • Training standards, such as first aid and CPR training

In California, for example, you can have 14 children in your home if you have an assistant, but there are regulations around this. Paying cheap rates to unqualified staff and skimping on insurance etc. is not going to work unless you're doing all this under the table or are very, very sure you will never be inspected to make sure you're compliant, and that no parent is going to complain:

1597.531. (a) All family day care homes for children shall maintain in force either liability insurance covering injury to clients and guests in the amount of at least one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) per occurrence and three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) in the total annual aggregate, sustained on account of the negligence of the licensee or its employees, or a bond in the aggregate amount of three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000). In lieu of the liability insurance or the bond, the family day care home may maintain a file of affidavits signed by each parent with a child enrolled in the home which meets the requirements of this subdivision. The affidavit shall state that the parent has been informed that the family day care home does not carry liability insurance or a bond according to standards established by the state. If the provider does not own the premises used as the family day care home, the affidavit shall also state that the parent has been informed that the liability insurance, if any, of the owner of the property or the homeowners’ association, as appropriate, may not provide coverage for losses arising out of, or in connection with, the operation of the family day care home, except to the extent that the losses are caused by, or result from, an action or omission by the owner of the property or the homeowners’ association, for which the owner of the property or the homeowners’ association would otherwise be liable under the law. These affidavits shall be on a form provided by the department and shall be reviewed at each licensing inspection.

So the easy scam is to just put pretend kids in and unqualified staff in place with fake credentials if ever interrogated. No auditor will investigate on their own and the local vote boss just says ' I will take care of it'

Checking staff genuinely have the paper qualifications they are supposed to have is very easy and the government does in fact do it if it isn't deliberately tolerating fraud. Part of the problem with non-fraudulent daycare costs is that the IQ floor for getting the paper qualifications is higher than the IQ floor for keeping a 1-year-old alive, so a system which tries to pay the going rate for keeping a 1-year old alive can't hire staff with the legally-required paper qualifications.

Depends on the age of the child and the market in question. For late preschoolers in red states(where there are few government subsidies to distort the market) thats very high; for younger kids- especially babies- it might be average, especially in a blue state where the government subsidizes demand.

AI is telling me that staff to kid ratio in my state and in the kid's age group is 1 to 12, so one staff generates $375/hr. Without looking it up, I know for a fact staff are not taking even third of that in their pocket. I know there's a lot more expenses going into this beyond just paying staff, but it's a home daycare for a few dozens of preschool kids that requires parents to even pack their lunch and its clearing $100k/m+ in revenue from both government and customers. Why are stay-at-home moms not coordinating setting up their own 'private daycares' and rack in thousands from the government? Sounds like an easy solution to the question of whether the mom should quit her job to raise the kid.

its clearing $100k/m+ in revenue from both government and customers

What insurance premiums are they paying? What is their average utility bill for electricity, for heating, for water, etc.? Are they paying rent on the premises? Staff are not getting one third of the $375/hr in take-home pay, but have you considered the gross pay not the net (which includes tax etc.)? Maybe US taxes work differently and there isn't the equivalent of PAYE, but employers must have to pay payroll taxes of some sort. That's the minimum staff ratio, but in practice you would want to have 2 to 12 (so e.g. if one staff member is dealing with taking kids to the bathroom, or on a break, there's someone in the room looking after the rest of the kids). Parents have to provide packed lunches, but does the daycare provide snacks and drinks (something that can be part of regulations, though if it really is run out of someone's home, maybe not required)?

It's not simply a matter of "aha, here is a sackful of money that I can just cream off" unless it's a scam. And as has been noted in different comments, you can't get money from the government for looking after your own kids in your own home. If Susie and Betty and Jane arrange that Susie minds Betty's kids, Betty minds Jane's kids, and Jane minds Susie's kids so they can apply for government funding, that may not work as they'll have to explain why Susie can't mind her own kids if she can mind Betty's kids etc. It's really not just as simple as "rack in thousands from the government". You have to apply for this funding and that can mean a lot of hoops to jump through, which is why cases like Minnesota do require co-ordination and corruption to succeed on the large scale.

I considered running a private daycare when I started motherhood but I didn't own my own home. Also the initial expenses to meet all regulations. Also 3k per kid seems off to me. Admittedly it was a few years ago but back then it was more like 2k per kid under 2 and 1k per kid above three.

Though looking at these numbers, it does sound like those would have been surmountable barriers. But I suspect there's some scamming to get to the 5k/month number.

I'm guessing the government only pays $5k/mo for special needs kids, even if they're not actually special needs.

Seems extremely high to me. Daycare for our toddler is $90 a day, and that isn’t some ghetto “Learing Center” full of Somalians either, which I expect would be substantially cheaper.

Which is about $1900 a month, and babies are more expensive than toddlers. Seems entirely consistent with the other numbers we are seeing.

Why would you expect it to be cheaper- I'd expect them to charge the government the highest rate it's willing to pay.

Thanks, that's a good resource. I tried searching Ohio but couldn't find anything, mostly because they didn't have clear public-facing info for this sort of thing (and admittedly I didn't look too hard).

I really wonder though, if it's just Daycare, or how many other industries are corrupted by this sort of fraud.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats